Nothing is better for the mind than a victory against the New Orleans Saints. Especially at the Louisiana Superdome in a game where not many people gave the Birds a chance.

After a poor overall performance at home against the Carolina Panthers, the Falcons offense had themselves a game against an excellent Saints defense in a very hostile environment. While this seemed like a game to avoid for fantasy managers starting any Falcons, it turned into a surprising smash spot for a few players.

There is a lot of great content available here at the Falcoholic, and I encourage you to check it out if you want some in-depth analysis. This article will look at things strictly from a fantasy football perspective (that means looking at nothing other than pure statistics). Here are Atlanta’s fantasy stud and fantasy dud from Week 9’s victory against the New Orleans Saints.

Fantasy Stud/Dud 2021 History:

Past Studs: Cordarrelle Patterson (4), Kyle Pitts (2), Younghoe Koo (1)

Past Duds: Mike Davis (2), Kyle Pitts (2) Matt Ryan (1), Younghoe Koo (1), Olamide Zaccheaus (1)

Fantasy Stud: Matt Ryan

Stat Line: 343 passing yards, 2 passing touchdowns, 5 carries, 8 rushing yards, 1 rushing touchdown: 28.52 standard league/PPR points

It’s a shame that Ryan had such a poor performance last week, because that mixed in with the difficult road matchup likely scared away plenty of QB needy fantasy managers looking for a streamer. The fantasy players in 8.1% of NFL.com leagues who did start the Falcon signal caller were rewarded with an outstanding performance.

The Falcons got next to nothing in the run game, against what has been the best run defense in the NFL. As a result, their success on offense was reliant on Ryan’s right arm, and he answered with a season high in passing yards, and his second-highest fantasy output in any week this year (he had slightly more points in Week 4 against Washington).

Ryan scored three total touchdowns, including one with his legs, and powered the third-highest scoring output from any fantasy QB through the completion of Sunday’s games.

Ryan is still not on the QB1 radar moving forward, but he has a couple of promising matchups against the Cowboys and Jaguars in the next three weeks, and will most definitely be a worthy streamer for those games.

Dud

Mike Davis: 9 carries, 13 rushing yards, 1 catch, 5 receiving yards: 1.80 standard league points; 2.80 PPR points

Things are not looking good for anyone who trusted Mike Davis as a potential RB2 coming into the season. We chase volume in fantasy football, especially with running backs, and Davis has gotten double digit touches in all but one game this season, but his productivity with those touches has not matched expectation.

Davis had a poor performance in Week 9, only totaling 18 yards from scrimmage and doing nothing for PPR owners with only one reception. With many good starting running backs on bye weeks, Davis was relied on by a fantasy manager in 33% of NFL.com leagues and he delivered a dud.

Things became nearly catastrophic when Davis fumbled a carry following Cordarrelle Patterson’s wonderful 64-yard game saving catch and run, which nearly put him in the negatives and cost the Falcons the game. Luckily, he did recover the fumble.

With Patterson doing much more with his looks, Davis has been relegated to a bye week fill-in whom you hope can find the end zone to pay off.